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At the heart of school-to-work reform is a transformation of curriculum and instructional practice that reflects a radical revisioning of schooling--radical, but rooted in the practices of John Dewey. Learning in the school-to-work system is "contextual," that is, learning that occurs in a real life context, or a close simulation of a real life context. Cognitive research has found that the typical classroom environment, characterized by lecture and passive learning, discourages many students from learning. Real environments, including workplaces, stimulate learning and engage students in a vital and active way.
Curriculum and instruction in transition systems must provide therefore multiple points of connection between the experiences of work and learning. School-to-work reform places intense demands on instructors, who must not only change what and how they teach inside the classroom, but make sure that what they teach supports and sustains student learning in work-based settings. This necessity requires that instructors willingly abandon standard curriculum, lesson plans, and strategies for alternative and innovative approaches. Often, they must not only devise new curriculum and strategies, but do so in cooperation with other instructors and even with employers, by itself an unfamiliar process for many teachers.
The successful school-to-work curriculum in some manner integrates demanding academic study with up-to-date vocational instruction and work-readiness preparation. As many educators will testify, integrating academic with vocational study alone is far more complex than simply recombining curriculum or adding learning objectives. The reason for the complexity is that what is required is change in instructional practices. Courses of study that more successfully achieve integration seem to draw from the academic courses the high expectations and standards more typical of academic courses, and from vocational courses, the experiential, learner-centered, hands-on approaches more typical of vocational courses.
Whatever the classroom curriculum, it must connect in a rational and supportive way to the workplace learning experience, and in schools that have instituted articulation agreements, with that postsecondary curriculum as well. Often those who supervise students in the workplace know little about learning styles or youth development. Instructors or transition specialists will need to work in concert with employers to ensure that every student has a plan for what he or she will learn, a plan that sets forth competencies and standards and a way of assessing these. The classroom instructor, again, will be responsible for seeing that the classroom component is thoughtfully connected with the workplace learning.
It is also important that the school curriculum in some way prepare students for work and workplaces, beyond specific vocational instruction. Some schools offer separate courses in workplace readiness, others teach these skills as part of each vocational program, still others consider this instruction to be part of the coaching role played by a transition specialist or instructor. These skills include appropriate workplace behavior, ethics, and job-finding strategies.
To measure the learning that occurs in settings so unlike the traditional classroom requires assessment practices which are correspondingly different. The usual examinations and grading practices are rarely adequate measures. Many school-to-work programs have drawn up comprehensive sets of competencies (often in consultation with business partners) which students in that program are expected to acquire, at certain minimum levels. Others have established comprehensive standards towards which all the programs within a school or district are expected to strive. Others have experimented with portfolio assessment as the most accurate way to document a student's education.
Lastly, school-to-work curriculum has to be sufficiently flexible to provide enough options to accommodate the variety of learning styles and occupational interests to be expected in a group of secondary school students. In practice this requires flexibility in curriculum, in placement, in scheduling, and in assessment.
The academic component of the educational plan is mastered through computer-assisted instruction (CAI), an individualized, self-paced program which matches computer courses to Florida state graduation requirements in English, math, social studies, and science. The CAI system has been designed to respond to all program needs from entry testing and assessment to curriculum presentation and assessment. Students complete course elements and receive credit on a continual basis, enabling them to catch up on their academic credits and receive immediate gratification that appears to motive them to continue.
In each academic area, students work at their own pace. Most students are able to accumulate the credits needed for graduation in two years or less. They can complete a unit by taking a test, either by hand or on the computer, and they may take the test as often as they like. Performance reports are generated by the computer for each activity, and students can ask for their reports at any time. The typical report contains information on the student's status in a given course, listing activities, tests taken, scores, and averages.
Once the standards were established, the high school began to plan and develop curriculum in all courses to match the standards. Simultaneously, it is trying to develop an assessment system that assesses to the standards. Portfolios and performance criteria are being developed and authentic assessment tools reviewed. At the time of the site visit, competency tests had been developed for home economics, health occupations, medical English, welding, foreign language, mathematics, chemistry, and other areas.
The high school also provides students with direct preparation for the workplace through its "critical workplace skills" course, an open-entry, open-exit course that offers applied and work- related training for students. Employers have worked with the school to create a curriculum that considers business needs. Instruction is provided in modules on critical thinking, quality control, applied math, technologies at work, work successes, workplace economics, computer literacy, and safety. Students are required to finish one module every two weeks and may also test out of modules.
Academy instructors modify all academic subjects to complement lab sessions and illustrate the application of these subjects to printing. They must also integrate safety guidelines, work habits, and ethics into the curriculum. For example, academy students built a small printing press and made ink, applying the theory and practice of science to printing. Students produced booklets about biological reproduction, writing text that had to meet academic standards for both English and biology, and printing a booklet that had to meet technical printing standards.
In the academy's third year, the instructional staff began implementing a project-based approach that also featured a renewed emphasis on team learning. The instructors introduce a topic, then give students a list of projects and requirements from which to choose. Each student contracts to pursue a particular project for the remainder of the grading period. Most of the projects suggested are team-based, in order to encourage students to work together. Students find themselves working in a multi-task environment in which much of the responsibility for completing their work in a timely fashion rests on their own shoulders. This project-based, team-based approach approximates the work environment students will encounter in a real job.
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[Element Seven: Work-based learning strategies]